Snow Such Luck
by littlesneezes
Summary: Sakura is invited to spend a snowy afternoon with Nozaki. However, the two of them find some difficulties in engaging in the usual snow-themed date activities.


Sakura frowned at her reflection.

Her hat wasn't right. Too far over her hair. Too far over her ears. Not covering enough of her fringe. The wool was scratching at her skin enough to leave a red stripe across her forehead but she continued tugging and tugging at it until she resigned herself to a loose position above the large red and white ribbons behind her ears.

"Pull yourself together, it's not like it's an actual date or anything" she muttered to herself. "There's no point in worrying about appearances."

Outside her window a small group of children jogged past in large winter coats and a light dusting from snowball hits, shouting and cheering until their voices faded away down the street. Despite an anticipated warm and dry winter, a couple weeks previous the sky opened, dumping ten to thirty centimetres of snow over Sakura's Christmas holiday. It wasn't an unpleasant surprise for her, she had always enjoyed the atmosphere and clean feeling of air after snow, but the weather had brought a particular problem this year.

She squeezed her eyes shut and snapped them open again to stare down her reflection until it looked a fraction more assured.

Nozaki just _had_ to call her over to join him for the day. Just _had_ to make it sound like a date. Just _had_ to drop the crucial piece of information that it was not in fact a date but a reconnaissance for winter-themed manga references and inspiration. Sakura's heart dropped just thinking about the crushing let-down that phone call had been.

Her reflection was beginning to look despondent again.

She shook herself and forced a smile. Even just thinking about spending time with him would lift her spirits, she knew. And it did, even if just a little.

That would do for now, she thought, and shoved a pair of gloves into her coat pocket. If I'm seeing him today then it'll be a good day. What could possibly go bad enough to ruin a snowy day with him?

Once the front door was closed behind her, her smile widened.

The sky was a beautiful clear crystal blue reaching from rooftop to rooftop, the street almost a pristine white carpet save for the spatter of footprints and bike tracks, almost no breeze and a, yes, clean crisp feeling to the cold air. Sakura hummed to herself as she made her way through the streets past clusters of children playing with dogs, sculpting little snow-animals on the top of walls and other pedestrians simply enjoying the peaceful morning.

She kicked clouds of snow up as she wondered what Nozaki would be asking of her. Maybe they would recreate scenes from classic snow-dates in romance genres. Like building a snowman together. Or an impromptu snowball fight. Or that one scene where the girl comments about how cold she is, the boy offers her his coat and they share it, the girl snuggled in his arms at the two embrace, sharing body heat and a sense of togetherness.

Sakura felt her cheeks burn as her train of thought descended into the usual cacophony of romantic nonsense. She took a deep breath to empty her head of the shimmering daydream as she heard her name called from down the street.

"Hey Sakura! You made it, wonderful!"

Nozaki had a staggering number of scarves wrapped around him, to the point where his face had all but disappeared behind the waves of wool and cotton.

Sakura slowed her pace as she neared him outside the park she had been instructed to find over the phone.

"You look…snug." She said.

He tugged a fold of scarf down to his chin as he spoke. "I feel the cold."

"You don't say."

"We'll head in now." Nozaki said and pulled his scarf up over his mouth again, shoving his mitten covered hands into his pockets and hunching his shoulders up as he strode into the park.

Sakura watched him go with bewilderment _. It's like he's preparing to go into a war zone or something._

Inside the park were a couple dozen kids above the age of 5 playing around with snowballs and rolling large clumps of snow across the park to make snowmen, several were soaked from being hit by snow and a couple were simply lying around on the ground, enjoying the thick layer which had seemingly sprung up from nowhere overnight. For a moment Sakura's images of winter-themed flirting resurfaced before she shoved them back down quickly and turned her attention to Nozaki.

"So, what first?" She craned her neck to see Nozaki's face over his scarf; he was gazing intently at the scene before him.

"Snowman building first I think." He said, his voice muffled. "We'll get to work over there. It looks like there's plenty of unused snow." He pointed towards an unoccupied corner of the park.

The building of the snowman was not particularly difficult, nor was it stressful. In fact, Sakura rather enjoyed watching Nozaki's undivided focus on the task, the two of them barely spoke a word until they had finished and seeing Nozaki's furrowed brow and his concentration was strangely relaxing. He seemed to be as captivated by making the snowman as he was when writing down ideas for his manga.

Sakura and Nozaki stepped back from their creation to take it in for a moment.

Sakura tipped her head, frowning.

Nozaki touched a hand to his chin and spoke, "I think we did a pretty good job, considering."

Sakura peered up at Nozaki. "I don't think that _thing_ could be called a snowman." It was not an exaggeration of a description in Sakura's mind as despite the combined power of the two art students, the figure was little more than a crumbling stump gently melting with one of Nozaki's scarves draped over a bump which could have been its head with a little imagination. "Maybe a snow-lump, or a snow-muffin."

Nozaki looked upset. "This is what we put our heart and souls into, Sakura, we put our heads together and created this snow-creature as the product of our teamwork and love. It is practically our child."

"Our…l-love?" Sakura spluttered as her eyes darted from the snow creation to Nozaki, whose nose had reddened almost as much as her entire face was now becoming.

The melting mound before her was becoming more visually appealing by the moment.

"W-we… with our l-l-love? Our ch-child, you say?" Her head spun with his words echoing in her head until he spoke again.

"How does that sound?"

"Eh?"

"Is that line too cliché or would it work in the midst of a snow-themed date do you think?"

Sakura felt herself deflate again. "I think it needs some work."

Nozaki sniffed and turned around to view the park again. He seemed to make a decision on the spot and squatted down to the ground.

"Hey, what are you doing?" Sakura said, trying to peer over his shoulder to see what he was working on.

"Secret." He did not lift his head.

Sakura stood back and crossed her arms. _Probably something dumb_.

Nozaki finally stood himself up and faced Sakura, a tightly packed snowball in his hand.

"Next, we engage in a politely competitive game of snowballing." He said, rolling the ball back and forth between his palms.

"I don't think it's normal to declare it like that." Sakura said, but braced herself for impact nonetheless. She had never been one for snowball fights as her height often meant she hadn't the vantage against opponents who would tower over her, such as Nozaki.

"Please be careful. I am small."

Nozaki weighted the ball in his hand and raised his arm.

"Here I come." He swung down, flinging the snowball across the distance between them and directly towards Sakura's face. As his eyes tracked the snowball's course and realised its target he stumbled and attempted to warn her but the ball made impact before he could open his mouth.

He quickly bounded over to where he had been knocked down to. "Woah Sakura you alright?" He said to the girl now lying face down on the ground.

Sakura raised a hand and mumbled from under a thin dusting of snow, "S'alright. I dodged it." She had landed in a large drift, covering herself in ice and melting snow from head to waist and sending a small glacier down the back of her winter coat.

Despite the chill creeping down her spine and slight grogginess from the impact she did feel a tiny bit proud of herself for avoiding being hit in the face by the lump of hardened snow and ice. In the moment a rush of adrenaline and sheer luck had brought her to turn her head away and shoulder up by a few inches, shielding her from the snowball and saving her from a black eye.

She gingerly touched a hand to her shoulder. "But I may bruise."

Nozaki held his head in his hands and groaned. "I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have trusted my snowballs skills. I should have let you go first. I ruined our snow-themed date."

A few people in the park were now peering curiously at the two of them sitting together in the snow.

Sakura smiled nervously and patted Nozaki's shoulder. "Nozaki, it's fine. I'm fine. Please stand up."

Nozaki raised his head and met Sakura's eyes for a few brief moments, but long enough for her face to reach boiling temperatures. _What is he going to do now?_

He stood up. "You must be cold."

Sakura flustered over herself and cleared her throat. "Uhm, I mean, there's some snow down the back of my shirt and there's ice melting in my hair but-"

Nozaki didn't let her finish but stooped down and scooped her up off the ground into his arms.

"Allow me to warm you up." He said, holding Sakura close enough to press her cheek against his scarf.

Sakura gasped something jumbled and confused and kicked her dangling legs, her entire face and neck burning bright red.

"Do you want down?" Nozaki asked, shifting her in his arms.

Sakura thought for a moment then said quietly, "No."


End file.
